There's A Very Good Reason Why The New 'Emma' Adaptation Is Ridiculously Sexy

The new 'Emma' adaptation is the only film you need to see this weekend. Image: UniversalSource:Whimn

We sit down with the stars and director of 'Emma' to discuss how they made one of the sexiest Austen adaptations yet.

There’s a kiss in the new adaptation of Jane Austen’s Emma that is so sexy, so full of longing and desire and deep, core-aching yearning, that it might make you blush.

I know what you’re thinking – nice Jane Austen boys don’t kiss like that. But oh, yes they fucking do, especially in this new adaptation directed by rock photographer Autumn de Wilde, making her film debut, and written from a script penned by Booker prize winning author Eleanor Catton. Peaky Blinders’ Anya Taylor-Joy stars as Austen’s eponymous comedic heroine who declares that she will never marry, on account of her being clever, handsome and oh so very rich. This being Jane Austen, you can guarantee that it will all end at the altar, the only question is will she be met by naughty Frank Churchill (Callum Turner), who spends an entire day travelling to London just to get his hair cut? Or by Mr Knightley (Johnny Flynn), the gorgeous and empathetic boy next door?

That kiss isn’t the only instance of sex appeal that has burrowed its way into this impeccably crafted period piece. There’s plenty of loaded, lascivious glances over sun-dappled picnics and hands almost brushing against other, gloved hands. Frank Churchill, played by Turner with undisguised bad boy relish, wears a wardrobe comprised almost exclusively of grey trousers which were, to use his own words “tight”. “I actually had this thing, I can’t remember what it’s called, but it’s basically a male corset to keep everything,” Turner jokes to Whimn.com.au, clenching his muscles. (Bill Nighy, who plays Mr Woodhouse, opted out of wearing the trousers. “I was cheeky enough to walk into our first meeting saying ‘no britches’... Because I haven’t got the legs,” he says, with a rueful grin.)

Emma - Trailer

Official trailer for Emma, starring Anya Taylor Joy and Johnny Flynn.

And then there’s the bare bottom. Very early on in the film Mr Knightley, home after a long ride, undresses, bathes and then redresses, shedding each layer of that complex – and yes, tight – Regency outfit, revealing his very naked butt, before carefully, dutifully strapping himself back in.

“I wanted to clarify how human Mr Knightley is,” de Wilde explains to Whimn.com.au. “We always see men in these period dramas in these beautiful clothes all buttoned up. But I thought that I would love to see the naked person before all of those things get added.”

But “it’s not there for a laugh,” de Wilde adds. “It’s not there to pop you out of the movie and go, oohhh, I’m a woman, let’s see a naked man. It’s there to remind you of something we haven’t seen enough of in movies. We know from movies how a woman’s day starts in this time period – I want to see how he bathed.” Later on in the film, after a turbo-changed dance sequence that is about as close as you’ll get to a sex scene in any given Austen film, Mr Knightley falls to his knees in his house, desperately ripping at the cravat that encircles his neck. “He’s so frustrated that he didn’t have the courage to tell Emma that he loved her,” de Wilde says. “And I loved the idea of these clothes being a prison for him… That the clothes are making his skin crawl.”

The new Emma adaptation impeccably walks what is a very difficult tightrope. The film both honours Austen’s original text, full of arch irony and keen social observation, as well as expanding it. Visually, it’s a feast, a reminder that though the relics of the Regency world we see today are antique and faded, in their day they were vibrant and full of life. The production design, helmed by Far From The Madding Crowd’s Kave Quinn, is so fizzy and delicious you will want to dive into it. When the film dips into sensuality – Emma biting into ripe strawberry; Harriet hyperventilating when Mr Knightley touches her ankle; and yes, that bottom – it does so not to titillate but to show each character’s humanity. Here are a bunch of “handsome, clever and rich” young men and women, to borrow Austen’s parlance. And what have young men and women done forever? Fall in love.

Callum Turner as Mr. Churchill. Image: UniversalSource:Whimn

The sensuality is “so important,” Turner adds. “As much as the comedy. It was something Autumn would push on a daily basis. We were laughing last night that her direction was sometimes ‘More sauce’,” he laughs. “We want more sauce in this scene. And I knew exactly what that meant. It’s about younger people finding their bodies and understanding themselves and how they want to use them, and where they want to go… I was laughing with Autumn yesterday that she’s made a high-octane version of Emma, because in those moments when the hand almost touches, that’s an exhilarating thing for the time, and we really lean into it.”

“I wanted to poke fun a little at how sexy Callum is,” de Wilde responds, laughing. “I think Jane Austen is pretty clear when a character is purely a cad, you know? Frank doesn’t try to ruin Emma, he only humiliates her. It makes him different from the other bad guys in her books.”

All of this was in service of de Wilde’s goal: to humanise Austen’s characters. Everyone in the film has a panic attack at some point, and they’re all trying to conceal it. There are also plenty of other quiet, mundane moments: a childish game, a nosebleed, a memory that is painstakingly written down in a teenage girl’s diary.

“We wanted a lot of personal stories that related to the existing story in the film,” de Wilde says. “Never in an effort to modernise, but just to remind people that [these characters] are humans… You can’t say they never would have done this or that when they’re alone, because there was privacy, and that was probably the only place they had privacy for the day. So I thought it was interesting to see what they might do with that privacy.”

They might put their hair into curling rags and practice slow dancing by candlelight, as Emma and her best friend Harriet Smith (Mia Goth) do, carrying on the grand tradition of teenage girls at sleepovers everywhere, always. They might tear off their clothing in anguish out of pure sexual frustration. And if the moment is right, they might even kiss.